By Chris Wagoner:
On the very first day of the new 115th Congress, Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced national concealed carry reciprocity legislation. As a concealed carry license holder himself, this is something that President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly said he supported.
The idea of being able to carry your firearm from one state to the next if you are licensed or allowed to carry in your home state has been long discussed. Previously, legislation such as this would have had very little possibility of passing, especially with a Democratic White House where it was sure to be vetoed before the ink was dry. But it appears, with the inauguration of the new Republican President-elect looming, that Congress has already started to seriously consider the kinds of things that it could not even dare to think about before.
The main issue in the past has been the state-to-state disparity in requirements for getting a concealed carry license. Some states require substantially more training, others require an applicant to go through a background check, and still more require the approval of local law enforcement officials. This list goes on. Our many states cannot make up their collective minds about what the requirements should be.
Some states that are more progressive in thought have no requirements, instead preferring to operate under what we call “Constitutional Carry,” which means you can carry a firearm without a license or other requirements as long as you are not a convicted felon or other federally-prohibited person.
This is as it should be nationwide: there should be no requirements by any state to allow a citizen to carry a concealed firearm, or for that matter, to openly carry a firearm, as it is a Constitutional Right.
Maybe we can hope that once national reciprocity goes into effect, states that are heavy on requirements will realize that these significant restrictions are simply not needed.
If this legislation passes and is signed into law, it may mark the dawn of a long-awaited realization that we should not regulate rights like we regulate privileges, such as driving a car. We need to help people to remember that rights are not something to be regulated, taxed, or licensed. You do not sell a right back to the people by making them get a license to exercise that right. Our rights are meant to be exercised no matter what state we find ourselves in. Our rights do not change because of a magical line on the ground.
Chris Wagoner is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army Veteran. He has been in law enforcement the last 35+ years. He specializes in LE Firearms Instruction, and is in charge of a large Police Academy in North Florida. In his spare time Chris is a freelance Military Reporter and owner/founder of the Largest Military Videos Channel on YouTube “3rdID8487”.
